Before Ubuntu Phone OS: The checkered history of open source phones

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

Open source software is among the most high-minded ideas in technology, and there are times that it’s a smash hit. The internet loves to embrace open platforms — it’s done wonders for Mozilla and Google. But aside from Google’s market-dominating Android platform, open source hasn’t seen a lot of success in mobile.

The road to Android is littered with the hollowed out shells of other open source platforms that just couldn’t make it work. Let’s take a look at where things went wrong…

Openmoko

The mobile industry was vastly different in 2006, but Openmoko had some fresh ideas that got a lot of folks interested. The Openmoko mobile phone project was essentially an effort to bring the Openmoko Linux operating system to a handheld device. The user interface was designed for touch and was built with X.Org Server and the GTK+ toolkit.

The Openmoko Neo 1973 was released in 2007 as a developer handset. The first consumer device, the FreeRunner, didn’t come out in mid-2008. The device was not terribly appealing considering its sluggish 400MHz ARM chip and small 2.8-inch screen. By that time the iPhone had a sizable mindshare and Android was already on the horizon.

Openmoko technically still exists, but the “Golden Delicious” next-generation development boards shipped a year ago and no one has shown much interest. It’s unlikely that Openmoko will have any impact on the wireless industry going forward.

Greenphone

The Greenphone was a unique device. It was not part of an expansive open source project backed by massive companies, but by a tiny subsidiary of Nokia called Trolltech (now Qt Software). The Greenphone ran a version of embedded Linux called Qtopia and was released to developer-minded individuals in September 2006.

This was more of a grand experiment in creating a completely open device than it was a sustainable business model. The device was an unlocked GSM 2G phone with a 312MHz Intel XScale processor, a QVGA non-touch screen, and 128MB of storage. The Greenphone kit cost a whopping $695.

A little over a year later Trolltech announced it had sold through all its Greenphone kits and did not plan to manufacture any more.

Moblin

When the words “Mobile Linux” are just too many syllables, there is Moblin. This was an operating system first launched in 2005 by Intel for use in phones and mobile internet devices (MIDs). You could be forgiven for letting the existence of MIDs fade from your memory like they have from reality. A MID was basically a touchscreen computing device a little larger than a phone. They were like tiny tablets that no one wanted.

As it tried to make MIDs happen, Intel developed Moblin around its Atom processors. While MIDs were the primary target, some netbooks launched with Moblin as minimally functional a pre-boot environment. Moblin was turned over to the Linux Foundation in late 2009, and that’s about when development stopped.

Intel announced in February of 2010 that it was merging Moblin with Nokia’s Maemo to create MeeGo. So Moblin didn’t so much die as it evolved into another product that subsequently died.

Maemo

In the in the early part of the 21st century, Nokia was dominant in smartphones. So it was a pretty big deal when the Finnish company decided to work on an open source, Linux-based mobile platform, even if it was a bit of a side project. Maemo version 1.1 was released in November of 2005, but it only worked on Nokia’s 770 internet tablet.

Maemo continued to meander through the development process with plenty of updates, but few supported devices. The N800 and N900 were well regarded phones in some circles, but development was halted with Maemo 5 on the N900.

In February 2010 Nokia announced that it was through with Maemo, and would instead be teaming up with Intel on a new hybrid project called MeeGo. Surely that worked out, right?

Tagged In

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

ExtremeTech Newsletter

Subscribe Today to get the latest ExtremeTech news delivered right to your inbox.

Email

This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our
Terms of Use and
Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time.